abc's jon karl joins us from washington. all talks secret up until now. what more do we know about what president obama and the speaker of the house have been discussing. >> reporter: a big deal here, george. as you mentioned, this would mean that the president would go along with reductions in spending to social security and medicare, most likely cost of living increases going down and in exchange republicans would accept some increase in tax revenues as part of an overhaul of the tax code. as one top administration told me, we need to do something unthinkable on entitlements. they need to do something unthinkable on tacks. >> unthinkable may be the word. these talks have been going on between the president and speaker boehner but there hasn't been a lot of discussion among a wider conferences in the house and the senate democrats and republicans and i guess the big question coming out of today's meeting, when other leaders find out about it, is it something they can work with and is it something that will fly? >> reporter: a great question. boehner and